Generally, trailer hitches are used for connecting cars and/or trucks to wheeled objects that are to be towed. These objects include, but are not limited to, boats, trailers and other wheeled objects that are to be pulled by a towing vehicle. The towing vehicle may have a permanent receiver type hitch installed with a rearward facing opening. Typically, the hitch has a mounting tube underneath the body of the vehicle and secured to the vehicle frame. The end of the mounting tube is somewhat recessed under the vehicle and then a removable ball mount is inserted into and secured to the mounting tube by a pin or the like, whereupon the wheeled object is secured to a ball mount. The removable ball mount typically consists of a length of a square or rectangular bar where one end of the bar is received in the rearward facing opening of the hitch. The other end of the bar carries an appropriately sized ball.
In order to accommodate various size loads, the receiver type hitches may be of different sizes. Standard insertion tube sizes and respective hitch openings are 1¼ inch, 2 inch and 2½ inch square, although other sizes may be utilized. The mounting tubes may also utilize different size mounting pins, wherein the standard pin sizes are ½ inch diameter or ⅝ inch diameter. The pin is received in aligned cross-openings in the mounting tube and the rectangular bar.
When not in use, the installed ball mount extends from the vehicle. As a result, people tend to walk into these extended ball mounts if they are unaware, and bump their shins. The driver of the vehicle may also forget that the detachable ball mount is in place and back their vehicle further than they should, resulting in damage to either the hitch/ball mount and/or the object that the ball mount impacts upon.
Various attempts have been made to avoid the foregoing problems. The typical solution involves attaching a ball mount holder somewhere on the vehicle for easy storage of the ball mount. However, this is still problematic in that holders are only specific to certain types of ball mounts. As such, they are unable to accommodate different sizes of ball mounts which may utilize different pin sizes. Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a ball mount holder assembly that is adaptable to mount to different structures and adaptable to carry different types of removable ball mounts.